Doomsday psychology: End of the world fuels fears, idealizes zombies

Doomsday, said to be Friday, Dec. 21, 2012, is the day the world will end. Many believe the Mayan calendar, now thought to have been misread by many, predicts the end of the world.

Despite statements from NASA debunking this idea, many still fear the Mayan apocalypse is among us. What is it that makes people continue to believe or, strangely enough, want this to be something real?

An article by Scientific American suggests a few ideas. An interesting one is the view that we enjoy the idea of end of the world theories such as the Mayan apocalypse. Doomsday lets people get a real sense of mortality.

One researcher from the University y of Minnesota, neuroscientist Shumel Lissek comments on how end of the world fears influence our behaviors:

“The initial response to any hint of alarm is fear. This is the architecture with which we’re built,”

Another theory is that doomsday predictions, such as the one associated with the Mayan calendar, or Dec. 21, 2012 (the end of the world), lets people ‘relax’ in a way because they will be able to let go of their responsibilities if the world ends. Child psychiatrist Steven Schlozman explains:

“I talk to kids in my practice and they see it as a good thing. They say, ‘life would be so simple–I’d shoot some zombies and wouldn’t have to go to school,'”

It is as thought the idea of the end of the world becomes somewhat of a romantic idea for some people. They consider what the world would be like if, as Schlozman puts it, ‘went back to nature?’

How do you see the Mayan apocalypse or Doomsday? Does Friday, Dec. 21, 2012, ‘the end of the world’, pose a day of relaxation and ‘romance’ filled with ‘fun’ killing some zombies knocking at your front door?

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